Screen legend Anita Ekberg has appealed for financial help after hitting hard times.

The 80-year-old Swedish born actress was a sex symbol of the 1960s. She is famously remembered for frolicking in Rome’s Trevi fountain in the classic Federico Fellini directed film La Dolce Vita.

But her current circumstances are a long way removed from her glory days. Miss Ekberg has been living in a care home for the last three months after falling and breaking her leg and her accountant Massimo Morais has revealed she is almost penniless.

Heyday: Ekberg takes a shower in Rome's Trevi Fountain in a scene from the classic 1960 film La Dolce Vita

Good company: Ekberg (centre left) with Frank Sinatra, with whom she was
romantically linked, and co-stars Dean Martin and Ursula Andrews
in the 1963 film Four for Texas

He has appealed directly to the
Rimini-based Federico Fellini Foundation for help, explaining that she
hit hard times after a break-in at her home near Rome, where thieves
took all her jewellery and furniture and the house was later damaged by
fire.

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Mr Morais said: ‘She would dearly
love to go home but the fact is she can’t as she does not have the money
to restore the house where she lives which was damaged in the fire.

‘She also has no family to help look after her and lives on her own. That’s why she is asking the Foundation for help.’

Hard times: Ekberg is living in a care home after falling and breaking her leg

The Fellini Foundation was created in
1995 by Maddalena Fellini, the late director’s sister, and the city of
Rimini to safeguard and promote the filmmaker’s legacy.

Miss Ekberg took Hollywood by storm after winning the Miss Sweden title and she went on to make more than 20 films.

She earned cult status as a sex symbol and she married twice, once to British matinee idol of the 1950s, Anthony Steel.

The Swedish star was also
romantically linked to many of Hollywood’s leading actors. Among her
lovers were rumoured to be Errol Flynn, Gary Cooper, Yul Brynner and
Frank Sinatra.

But it was her breathtaking
appearance in La Dolce Vita for which she is mainly remembered. Her
curvy figure and seductive voice captivated cinema goers and launched
her as the ultimate blonde bombshell.

In the film she played American
actress Sylvia Rank and starred alongside Marcello Mastroianni, who was
cast as a reporter who falls for her charms. The pair spend an evening
together before she leaps into the Trevi Fountain at dawn in a black
shoulderless dress.

Yesterday there was no immediate
response from the Fellini Foundation although sources close to the
organisation said they ‘barely had any money themselves’.